The present disclosure relates to thermal contrast therapy devices, treatment methods for providing thermal contrast therapy, and systems for providing and managing thermal contrast therapy treatments.
Thermal contrast therapy comprises therapeutic treatments in which a sequence of alternating cooling periods and heating periods are provided to one or more areas of a patient's body. The alternating cooling periods and heating periods respectively deliver or remove heat from the treatment area. The treatment sequence may be continued for a specified period of time or a specified number of heating periods and/or cooling periods. For example, the sequence may continue for an amount of time effective to achieve a desired therapeutic result.
Without wishing to be constrained by theory, the inventors understand that thermal contrast therapy can cause cycles of vasodilation and vasoconstriction, thus creating a pumping action which improves blood circulation and quality. Applying heat to body tissue may cause vasodilation, or dilation or widening of blood vessels. When blood vessels dilate, the flow of blood through the vessels increases due to a decrease in vascular resistance. Therefore, dilation of arterial blood vessels (mainly the arterioles) is believed to decrease blood pressure in the dilated vessels. Applying cold to body tissue may cause vasoconstriction, or contraction or narrowing of blood vessels, which is believed to increase blood pressure in the contacted blood vessels. When blood vessels constrict, the flow of blood is restricted or decreased, forcing blood to move to other parts of the body.
Blood delivers oxygen and nutrients to, and removes wastes from, tissues and organs. If circulation is poor or slow, delivery of healing nutrients or removal of toxins may be inadequate or suboptimum, which may delay healing or even cause degeneration of tissues or organs. It is believed that by improving the circulation and quality of blood, more nutrients are made available for cells to use, and that as such, toxins may be managed more efficiently.
Additionally, lymph vessels contract when exposed to cold and relax in response to heat. The lymph system, unlike the circulatory system, lacks a central pump. Without wishing to be constrained by theory, it is believed that alternating periods of heating and cooling cause lymph vessels to dilate and contract to essentially “pump” and move fluid from one area to another. This movement of fluid positively affects the inflammation process, which is the body's primary mechanism for healing damaged tissue.
Given these and other physiological effects known in the art, thermal contrast therapy may be an effective treatment for a number of different conditions. The therapy may be applied to any part of the body, for example, a part of the body that is inflamed, congested, injured, fatigued, or recovering from a surgical procedure. General therapeutic uses of thermal contrast therapy include management of pain, swelling, fever, toxins, spasms, constipation, and immune function. Thermal contrast therapy may be used generally to reduce edema or swelling, reduce or sooth pain, encourage healing of bones and tissue, and rehabilitate injuries to bone, muscle, ligaments, tendons, and skin. Thermal contrast therapy may also be an effective treatment for patients with hypothermia or frostbite, for example, to enhance circulation in affected tissue.
Thermal contrast therapy may also be used after an acute injury or surgery to reduce pain and swelling, and to promote healing. Athletes have also used thermal contrast therapy after or between competitions or training sessions, to speed recovery or reduce delayed onset muscle soreness by helping to flush lactic acid from sore muscles. Thermal contrast therapy may also be used to relax joint tissue such as ligaments and tendons, which may help increase range of motion. Thermal contrast therapy may also be an effective treatment for patients with spinal cord or nerve damage, for example, to enhance blood flow to the injured nerve tissue, or prevent or mitigate disputation of the tenuous blood supply.
Thermal contrast therapy may also be an effective therapy for diabetes and related physiological complications, for example, gangrene, or for lymphedema or other disorders associated with vascular or lymphatic insufficiency, for example, chronic venous insufficiency, venous stasis ulcers, post-mastectomy edema or chronic lymphedema, and for peripheral vascular disease or any other circulatory deficiency syndrome, for example, arteriosclerosis, deep vein thrombosis, Buereger's disease, or thromboangiitis obliterans. Thermal contrast therapy may provide therapeutic relief for multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune disorders, for example to treat pain and/or improve blood circulation. Other studies indicate that thermal contrast therapy may positively influence the immune system. Thermal contrast therapy may also be an effective therapy for destruction of subcutaneous lipid cells.
Thermal contrast therapy may be performed manually, such as by alternately immersing an area of the body (e.g., a foot, ankle, or leg) in a cold water whirlpool or bath and a warm whirlpool or bath, or by alternately applying a heat source, such as a heating pad or hydrocollator pack, and a cold source, such as an ice pack, or the like. Alternatively, thermal contrast therapy devices are commercially available which circulate water or other fluid through a treatment pad surrounding an area of the body sought to be treated. Such manual treatments and existing devices, however, may be unsuitable or ineffective for treating some conditions and/or patients.
Without wishing to be constrained by theory, it is believed that the effectiveness of thermal contrast therapy may be enhanced by providing a customized treatment sequence. Existing devices and treatment methods may offer only a finite number of pre-programmed therapies, with only limited ability to vary parameters of the treatment sequence. There is therefore a need for improved devices and methods for providing customized thermal contrast therapy treatment sequences. Some customized treatment sequences disclosed herein require a level of accuracy, precision, and control—for example, of the fluid temperature, the specified measure of heat transfer, and/or various other parameters of the treatment sequence—which may not be feasible with existing devices or manual treatments. There is therefore a further need for improved thermal contrast therapy devices having one or more of the various aspects disclosed herein.
Additionally, without wishing to be constrained by theory, it is believed that in some instances, the effectiveness of thermal contrast therapy may be enhanced by providing treatment sequences that include rapidly alternating cooling periods and heating periods and/or rapid transitions between such periods. Such treatment sequences may, among other things, be effective to enhance vasoconstriction and/or vasodilation and corresponding therapeutic effects. Existing devices may be unsuitable for providing such rapidly alternating periods and/or rapid transitions between periods. For example, existing devices may have an unsuitably large thermal mass in fluid communication with the fluid.
Various components of a thermal contrast therapy device each have a given thermal mass, which may be expressed as:Cth=mcp  (1)where m is the mass of the component and cp is the isobaric specific heat capacity of the component averaged over the temperature range in question. The cumulative thermal mass attributable to the various components in thermal communication with fluid circulating through a thermal contrast therapy device may be expressed as:Cth_total=Σn=1nCth1+Cth2+ . . . +Cthn  (2)
Such components in thermal communication with circulating fluid may absorb thermal energy from hot fluid (e.g., during heating periods) and dissipate thermal energy to cold fluid (e.g., during cooling periods).
When transitioning between periods of a treatment sequence, the duration of time required for the circulating fluid and the various components in thermal communication with the fluid to attain equilibrium temperature depends on, among other things, the thermal mass attributable to such components. When a thermal contrast therapy device has a relatively large thermal mass in thermal communication with the fluid circulating through the device, the duration of time required for the fluid to attain equilibrium temperature may be unsuitably large due to heat transfer with the thermal mass. For example, upon transitioning from a heating period to a cooling period, such thermal mass may accumulate heat from the hot fluid, which heat will then transfer to the cold fluid during the cooling period. Thus, when transitioning between periods some duration of time elapses before the fluid in thermal communication with the thermal mass attains equilibrium temperature with respect to heat transfer with such thermal mass. With some devices, the duration of time required to attain equilibrium temperature may exceed the duration of time specified for effecting transitions between alternating periods of a treatment sequence and/or the duration of time specified for such alternating periods, such as with rapidly alternating cooling periods and heating periods and/or rapid transitions between such periods. Consequently, the temperature of fluid circulating through a device may drift over the course of a given period or sequence of alternating periods due to heat transfer with such thermal mass. Also, the heating and/or cooling requirements for providing fluid to a treatment pad at a given temperature increase with increasing thermal mass in thermal communication with the fluid circulating through the treatment pad. Accordingly, devices having a relatively large thermal mass attributable to components in thermal communication with fluid circulating through a treatment pad may be unsuitable for performing certain treatment sequences disclosed herein. There is therefore an even further need for improved thermal contrast therapy devices.
Because of these and other limitations, it is believed that existing thermal contrast therapy devices and/or treatment methods may frequently provide a suboptimum treatment. Moreover, in some situations, a treatment provider or a user may administer treatments which could actually be harmful to the body. For example, if too much heating or cooling is provided, blood flow may be detrimentally restricted and/or tissue may be damaged. Such blood flow restriction may arise from blood pooling caused by excessive heating, or from constriction of blood vessels caused by excessive cooling. Thermal contrast therapy may be optimized, and injury may be avoided, by providing customized treatment sequences. Thus, it would be advantageous to provide thermal contrast therapy devices, methods, and systems as disclosed herein, which provide greater ability to vary and control treatment parameters, enhanced treatment precision and accuracy, and the ability to administer customized treatment sequences.
The skilled artisan will appreciate that research into the effects and benefits of thermal contrast therapy under various treatment conditions is relatively underdeveloped, and in many instances practitioners may desire further research as to the best way to treat a particular patient, body part, injury, ailment, or condition. It would therefore be advantageous to provide researchers and practitioners with devices, methods and systems that facilitate further research on the subject of thermal contrast therapy.
It is to be understood that thermal contrast therapy may be provided to any human or other mammalian patient, and as such, the present disclosure has applicability in both the medical and veterinary arts. The reader will appreciate that references in the present disclosure to a person, patient, user, and/or recipient of thermal contrast therapy treatments also means and refers to any other mammalian species.